Long Beach Police LIFE Re-Entry program ends after loss of funding

LONG BEACH - When Lorenzo Tafoya saw his friend Charlie Roseland earlier this week, his face immediately lit up with a broad smile.

After the two gave each other a hug and exchanged their "how are yous," they both had great news to share. | » POLICE NEWS

"I got a promotion man, they made me supervisor," Tafoya told Roseland. "I've only been working there four weeks."

"That's great, I just got a raise," Roseland added, matching Tafoya's excitement with an equally massive grin and handshake.

Such accomplishments would be significant for anyone, but if one considers where the two men were not too long ago, those events seem almost miraculous. Both were incarcerated on felony crimes, and it wasn't their first time in prison.

What made the difference this time, after so many previous chances ended with the men going back to "life inside," was the Long Beach Police Department's LIFE Re-Entry program, which stands for "Living with Integrity Fellowship and Education."

The success of the program was evident Thursday night, when more than a dozen men and women celebrated their graduation from the one-year program. For many, it was the first graduation of their lives.

However, the graduation was the first and last for the program, due to the grant that started it all running out. The Long Beach Police Department has received no assistance from the state, despite the year-old prison realignment program, or AB 109, that requires 30,000 state inmates to be released to local authorities.

"This program should be sponsored by the state, unfortunately it is not," Police Chief Jim McDonnell said at the graduation. "I hate to come before you on a night of such celebration with such sad news. Hopefully we'll get (the grant) back and come back stronger than ever."

As the chief congratulated the graduates and their family and friends Thursday, the pride in the room was palpable, as was the concern that the program that many said saved their lives might not be able to continue.

The Press-Telegram interviewed more than half a dozen participants, some still working toward their one- year goal and others who have completed the program, and their back stories were nearly identical.

Young and in trouble

Most started running afoul of the law as youths, or children. Tafoya laughs that his first burglary saw him arrested at the age of 8. He saw a piggy bank sitting near an open window at a house, jumped into the yard and pulled a picnic table over so he could reach it.

Nearly all of them developed addictions at young ages that clouded their judgment and drove them to desperate measures. Many of them found solace in local gangs, either because they didn't receive enough support at home or because their poor behavior made relationships with family strained.

Once in prison, they all became used to a way of life that most Americans would find not only stifling, but also terrifying.

"It changes you, it has to or you won't survive," participant Louie Perez explained.

LIFE Re-Entry began in 2010, when two Long Beach Police Department patrol officers - Juan Avila and Douglas Hara - were tasked with researching programs designed to reduce recidivism in high-risk prison and jail inmates.

The officers looked at programs across the nation, both those run by law enforcement agencies, social service programs and nonprofit entities. By 2011, Hara had moved on to another assignment and Officer Brian McPhail joined Avila in researching programs and working with inmates, most of whom were found through the Long Beach Substance Abuse Foundation.

The pair cobbled together an innovative and far-reaching approach, focusing their efforts on those most at risk of returning to prison or jail based on studies showing such participants were the most likely to benefit from the intensity of the program, which does everything from helping newly released probationers and parolees get their licenses to sending them to meditation courses designed to help with addiction and anger.

Commitment required

Participants must be willing to put in the work, which includes attending school to earn a high school or associate's degree, and training for jobs. All the participants in the program are enrolled in school, and most have jobs.

Several have been able to regain custody of children previously lost, and many have rekindled relationships with loved ones not seen in years or decades, like Mike Biondo, who celebrated his first Christmas in 10 years last December with his family.

"I'm doing things today I never thought I'd do. I'm going to school. I'm going to concerts I never had the money for before because I spent everything on dope. I went to a party and got to hold the Stanley Cup," the soft-spoken Biondo said. "The people in my life now, friends that I'm involved with today, they wouldn't have pissed on me if I had been on fire across the street."

Success stories

Biondo has been off parole since 2010 and says he is never going back to the criminal life. He, like so many of the men and women in the LIFE Re-Entry program, found it through the Long Beach Substance Abuse Foundation. And he, like the others, has found success through work and school.

For Roseland, who is student body vice president at Los Angeles Trade Technical College, the transformation began during his last stint in the L.A. County Jail system. Roseland qualified for Sheriff Lee Baca's MERIT program and training through Hollywood Impact Studios, part of Fox Studios, which prepares inmates for jobs in the film and television industry. Finding the LIFE Re-Entry program upon his release was crucial in continuing with those positive changes, he said.

Roseland is a vastly different man today. He has been off parole since March, a first in his adult life.

"Cops have always taken an interest in me. It's just the interest has changed," he laughed. "They used to stake out outside my door, now they ask me to come talk to them about how I've changed and how they can help other people change."

For those who say they don't care if Roseland, or his fellow participants, are able to rehabilitate themselves, the man has a no-nonsense answer, citing the annual cost of $47,000 to incarcerate California inmates.

"One thing the public needs to know is you can't make a change without education," he said. "Education costs money, you have to realize that. It's cheaper to educate than it is to incarcerate. It's a proven fact."

Perez loves to describe how Avila fondly calls him his "biggest mistake." With an extensive criminal history, including a potential life prison term that saw him qualify for parole after serving the base sentence, Avila looked like too much of a challenge. Covered in tattoos, and with a background checkered by violence, drugs and gang crimes, he was not a likely candidate for reform, he admits.

"When that judge called us a menace to society, he was right," Perez said.

Perez grew up in Inglewood, and every time he went back to prison or jail the cops in his neighborhood would check in with his sister to see when his release date was coming up. "They'd have a pool on when I'd be back."

Before LIFE Re-Entry, Perez's longest stint outside of prison was three months. At Thursday's graduation, he celebrated a year and a half of free living - free from parole, free from warrants, free from drugs. It is the longest time he has been in such a state since his childhood.

"My attitude is totally changed," he said. "Officer Johnson used to arrest me all the time. We know each other very well.

"Now, when we see each other, we'll sit down at a coffee shop and have a coffee and talk. I never would have thought I would be having coffee with him, or have a cop like Avila or McPhail in my living room just to talk."